A wealth of eastern European experience

Deep eastern European oil and gas experience. It’s a history that developed by circumstance, but it’s a direction that is now purely by design for Pennine Petroleum Corporation.

Since 2015, Pennine has embarked on a program of new-frontier exploration and production. Pennine is now focused squarely on oil and gas extraction and production in eastern and southeastern Europe, including the Republic of Albania, where PNN has successfully negotiated the rights to the Velca Block.

It’s a perfect fit for a company whose leadership have industry experience that runs the gamut—geological and geophysical exploration, reservoir and extraction engineering, production and refining—in former Soviet-bloc countries. Pennine’s search for new frontiers has been determined by the purpose and the direction of our key people:

CEO N. Desmond Smith was involved in successful public and private ventures in both Crimea and Azerbaijan. In 1998, Mr. Smith co-authored that country’s first onshore exploration development production sharing agreement, a landmark event that paved the way for domestic and foreign participation;

Chairman Richard Wadsworth was integral in developing Albania’s Patos-Marinza heavy oil fields, the largest onshore oil field in Europe. From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Wadsworth co-founded and then led Bankers Petroleum Ltd., which would later reach production levels of 20,000 barrels per day and be privatized in 2016 by a Chinese firm;

Board member Harry Sargeant IV, whose family business involves marine shipping of asphalt and refining, has significant refining experience in both Albania (with the Ballsh and Fier refineries) and Romania (with the Constanta refinery).

Given the landlocked nature of the Canadian value of hydrocarbons, Pennine is now fully engaged in the promise of eastern and southeastern Europe, where netbacks based on Brent pricing are superior to the Canadian alternative.